Is Falling Failure or Freedom?
What defines a “fall”? Some would say that a fall is a freeing from the restrictions of the oppression of a supreme being. Others would say that a fall is the punishment that comes from foolishly disobeying the one who is in authority over you. The falls in book nine of “Paradise Lost” and “Othello” both have parallels in the reasons and methods in which revenge was carried out and perfection was destroyed. But these stories end with different victors and very different balances of power.
The fall of “Paradise Lost” does have motives and patterns common with the fall of “Othello.” Each story establishes the authority of a Supreme Being, God the creator and Othello respectively. God the creator made everything that exists, and had control over his creation, which happens to be the vicinity of the setting of Paradise Lost. Othello was in authority over all the characters we become familiar with in the play, making his power and God’s power parallel when we consider that they each control the entire expanse of the story. The “deceiver” figures in each are Satan and Iago. Satan becomes jealous of the freedom, authority, and unwarranted appreciation and power God gives to man, his new and “undeserving” creation. Satan feels that he should have been exalted, not put in a position to submit to man. In the same way, Iago felt that he should have been favored by Othello. Instead Othello chose Casio to be his second in command. Because Satan and Iago both felt overlooked and under rewarded, they each mapped out a plan to destroy the purity or happiness of their creator. Both “Paradise Lost” and “Othello” had a character that was used by the deceiver as a tool to further his evil plot. Satan used the serpent, an innocent member of God’s creation, and Iago used Emilia, his wife, who was a servant and confidant of Desdemona to make a more convincing lie. The first main difference between the falls of these two stories is who was being deceived. In paradise lost, it is the beloved creation of the Supreme Being that is manipulated and acts wrongly. In Othello, it is the actual “Supreme Being” figure that is deceived and brought to a tragic end.
With this definite veer in parallels, we can expect that the end of each story will result with a different victim and a different level of punishment. One must consider the two stories separately t...
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The question still remains, what do these two falls represent? The fall in “Othello” represents the failing of friendship’s ability to keep jealousy under control. Iago at one time had respect, even a love for Othello. But jealousy eventually got in the way of his devotion to Othello, and his feelings of equality to Othello and complaint of unfair treatment drove him to seek revenge. We are encouraged to regard this failing as the actions of a man who has been made jealous by being looked over for a promotion. Iago took his own human nature to the next level of greediness, and determined that he would not be left out of the glory he felt he had earned.
The fall of “Paradise Lost” represents the failing of man’s free will to obey the all knowing creator. From the book, we are to regard this fall as an act of rebellion spawned from manipulation and ignorance, which was regretted by Eve and Adam. Satan had no power other than that which God allowed him to have. Ultimately, we see that man has a way for redemption of their fall, and a way to regain their state of peace with God. Man can regain the state of being good within the eyes of God because of the sacrifice Christ made.
In conclusion, it is possible for science and religion to overlap. Although Gould’s non-overlapping magisterial claims that creationism doesn’t conflict with evolution, it doesn’t hold with a religion that takes the biblical stories literally. Moreover, I defended my thesis, there is some overlap between science and religion and these overlaps cause conflict that make it necessary to reject either science or religion, by using Dawkins’ and Plantinga’s arguments. I said earlier that I agree with Dawkins that both science and religion provide explanation, consolation, and uplift to society. However, there is only conflict when science and religion attempt to explain human existence. Lastly, I use Plantinga’s argument for exclusivists to show that such conflict means that science and religion are not compatible. It demands a rejection t either science or religion.
Love and affection is an indispensable part of human life. In different culture love may appear differently. In the poem “My god my lotus” lovers responded to each other differently than in the poem “Fishhawk”. Likewise, the presentation of female sexuality, gender disparity and presentation of love were shown inversely in these two poems. Some may argue that love in the past was not as same as love in present. However, we can still find some lovers who are staying with their partners just to maintain the relationship. We may also find some lovers having relationship only because of self-interest. However, a love relationship should always be out of self-interest and must be based on mutual interest. A love usually obtains its perfectness when it develops from both partners equally and with same affection.
Lola is a typical teenager who just wants to irritate her mother. It was peculiarly
As early as the first scene of the play Iago shows us strong motives for his actions. In this first scene we see Othello, a general of Venice, has made Cassio his new lieutant. Iago feels he truly deserves his promotion as he says "I know my price, I am worth more no worse a place."(l.i.12) Iago over here is confused why Othello has made such a stupid decision. Iago is a man with a tremendous ego who knows, sometimes overestimates, his worth. Roderigo, a Venetian gentleman, understands Iago when Iago said that he is "affined to love the Moor."(l.i.41-42) What Iago really means is "I follow him to serve my term upon him."(l.i.45) Iago wants to use Othello for his personal goals. We also must put ourselves into Iago's shoes. He is a man whose self-esteem and professional carrier have just been torn apart. Iago makes his actions of revenge toward Othello almost immediately by informing Brabantio, a Venetian senator and father of Desdemona, that "an old black ram (Othello) is tupping (his) white ewe (Desdemona)."(l.i.97)
Shakespearian tales always leave us with a plethora to ponder about the Elizabethan age and Shakespeare himself. “Othello” is no break in this mold, leaving us to ponder the roll of Iago within the harsh tale of love and murder. Iago is the one to tell Othello of his wife’s betrayal with Cassio, hence making up a story that will work to his favor yet betray those around him. Iago betrays his wife, Emilia, but not only her as he drags Othello, Desdemona, and Cassio into the mix of lies and the hatred he is spreading to improve his rank with Othello. But were Iago’s acts unjust and done for the sake of it? Is he a heartless man who’s only happiness is to bring sorrow upon others? No, Iago has a just reason for what he does, even though he causes the deaths of Cassio, Emilia, and Desdemona in his search for revenge; Iago is not a heartless fiend, just a man wronged.
One of the major themes of Othello is that of jealousy, a manifestation of paranoia and obsession in itself. Iago’s burning desire to drive Othello to madness and a compulsion to disgrace those above him can be seen, with a Marxist reading, as his intense dissatisfaction with the social system he is a part of, ‘we cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly followed’. Likewise, his intellectual superiority over his betters and peers is made evident ...
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is more reason for him to follow an evil path instead. Even so, Milton uses literal and figurative imagery in the description of Satan’s character to manipulate the reader’s response to the possibility that Satan may actually be a heroic figure. As the plot of the story unfolds there are moments where the reader can identify with Satan’s desires and relate to his disappointments.
In the play Othello, the character Iago plays a paramount role in the destruction of Othello and all of those around him. Some critics state that Iago's actions are motiveless and that he is a purely evil character. However, during the course of this paper, certain motives for Iago's actions will be discussed.
“Gender schema theory proposes that children develop a gender schema as a means of organizing their perceptions of the world. Once children acquire a gender schema, they begin to judge themselves according to traits considered appropriate to their sex.” (Rathus, Jeffrey, & Fichner-Rathus, 2014) The children who are successful in developing self-concepts that in line with the assigned gender will generally have higher self-esteem and are happier and healthier, mentally and emotionally speaking, when they are living in accordance with their assigned gender norms. Reversely, when children are raised in households that do not recognize gender norms, then children are at a deficit for learning how to be masculine men and feminine women and are at great risk of being mentally and emotionally unhappy and
Within the context of Paradise Lost, it seems that Milton viewed free will as being somewhere between the ability to do whatever you wish and having all of your life events predetermined by God. Using this definition of free will Adam, Eve, Satan, the Son, and the Angels have the ability to choose their actions within situations that have been predetermined by, or are at least known to, God. It can then be proposed that the fall was not predetermined and that Adam and Eve had the choice to reject the temptation they were presented with but failed, leading to the fall of mankind.
Iago, the villain in Shakespeare’s Othello, is a character that builds up anger throughout the play. As the play continues, Iago seeks to destroy all those in his path. However, it is not clear what motivates Iago to go as far as he does. When he has destroyed Cassio’s reputation he could have secured his partnership with Othello and lived on happily. Instead of being happy to take Cassio’s position, Iago wants to mess up Othello’s life by tricking him into thinking Desdemona has cheated on him. This random desire to destroy others’ lives is a huge part of Iago’s character.
Galadari, A. (2011). Science vs. religion: The debate ends.The International Journal of Science in Society,2(2), Retrieved from http://science-society.com/journal/
Ian Barbour introduced four models to establish the relationship between religion and science in his book, “Religion In An Age of Science”. This included the Conflict, Separation, Dialogue, and Integration models. The dialogue model in particular describes the methodological parallels that exist between the two paradigms. In this model, both science and religion are areas with significant knowledge of the unive...
...nowing (Satan is just hunk of mass with no free will) and that Satan is our epic hero (Satan is head the rebel angels). Satan also loses because of the fact that due to his trickery he would be a snake forever, and that The Son was going to come down to earth and die to save Adam & Eve, so that Satan’s action would be eliminated. Break down Paradise Lost to it bare essentials, removing all religious overtones, and all that remains is an epic poem. The hero of this poem is a man named Satan who is banished for challenging the leadership of the clan. This man Satan makes a vow to destroy or corrupt anything created by the clan. This Satan was resourceful, making the best of what he had, very little, and accomplishing his goal. Satan may just be the nonconformist who could not abide by what was considered normal. In any case, one must show their admiration for Satan in his unwillingness to serve in Heaven, and then in the way he accepted his resulting role in Hell.
Science and the study of religion have existed in society for hundreds of years and have agreed and disagreed on many of the same topics. When it comes to solving problems and figuring out complex phenomena we can use both science and the study religion to get answers. While religious studies are not intended to solve problems it can be used and is used just like science to solve problems we have in society. Science is based more on reason and evidence while religion is based more on philosophical ideas and faith. Science is meant to answer problems that require reason and evidence while religion is not.